#096 - Mail Me Patience

This episode of the Sprinkler Nerd Show is brought to you by......me! This episode is sponsored by your host, Andy Humphrey. Yep, I'm paying myself, or not paying myself, to entertain your earballs. Kidding, but I got your attention, right? It is a reminder that this show is free, and it cost me about $500 of my time to produce each episode - just my time, not money - but time is money and I'm making this investment for both of us.

 

If you enjoy what I'm producing, my only ask is that you #1 subscribe to the show, and #2 Share this show with a friend or colleague. That would mean the world to me - and because this podcast is niche - and niche by design - there is not a pool of a million listeners out there searching for it - the best way we can develop a larger audience is word of mouth - and i need your assistance. So please subscribe and please share this episode or any episode with a friend.

 

Part #1 - Mail Me

 

As it turns out, you guys are really liking the direction of the podcast.

 

Thanks for your honest feedback, it was so great to chat with many of you at the IA Show last week.

 

The first part of this episode is an experiment.

 

Why is it an experiment? Because i need to entertain myself. Seriously, I thought this experiment would be fun , and it would be an interesting way for us to get to know each other better.

 

So here's the experiment.

 

I would like to personally mail you something.

 

I can't say what that something is, but I want to mail you something. Let's just leave it a mystery.

 

But before I can mail you something I need your address. Cna Myles, if you are listening, way up there in Oh Canada, I'm not sure what it might cost me, but I owe you for the double Whiskey's you bought me in Las Vegas - that was very fun, thank you.

 

So here is what I need you to do.

 

 

I know how many people listen to each episode, so I know I can do it. What I don't know is what might happen in 2 years when the rest of the industry wakes up and starts listening to this. Maybe then, I'll get Hunter to sponsor the mailing, haha.

 

 

Part #2 - Patience

 

I was listening to another episode of the Tim Ferriss Show, and this episode was with Author Steven Pressfied.

 

Steve wrote for 17 years before he earned his first penny.

 

He wrote for 27 years before he got his first novel published (The Legend of Bagger Vance).

 

During that time he worked 21 different jobs in eleven states.

 

he taught school, he drove tractor-trailers, he worked in advertising and as a screenwriter in Hollywood, he worked on offshore oil rigs, he picked fruit as a migrant worker ...

 

And for one season he lived in a house with no power, no water, no doors, no windows. Rent was $15 a month ...

 

Steve explains that life as a writer is like an odyssey. It goes from someone that, at the start, can't do it, and at the end of it, can do it.

 

So if you are feeling like you can't do something - perhaps you are just at the start of it. It's not that you can't do it, it's just that somethings take time to learn, and everyone has a different learning ability - some learn quickly, some learn slowly, and not everyone has the same amount of time to be learning.

 

The bigger questions - actually it's more of a reminder, it that you can do anything.

 

One of the takeaways from his story, and it resonated with me, is that there were a series of breakthroughs along the way, emotional or other, and almost always, the breakthroughs don't pay off in the moment.

 

You can have a breakthrough, let's call it an AHA moment, and then nothing happens. He says that it's like 10years later, it finally pays off. So that if anyone listening, is trying to understand what that means - what it means is that big work - big ideas - take a long time to become something.

 

If you are starting company right now, or you have just hired a key employee, or you are building a passive income stream by flipping houses, it might be a year - or 2 years - or more, before you really start seeing ht benefits.

 

let me give you an example, and I haven't shared this publicly yet - I don't think.

 

I had an aha moment and decided to offer paid technical support calls with me, via Zoom, behind a paywall. Millions of DIYers run to YouTube to get answers - I do the same regularly. I thought, what if for $75, I could just answer their question?

 

So I through a customer link onto every youtube video that I make and I waited. Then, one, someone actually paid $75 and scheduled a call with me. I was shit, fuck yes, this worked, this is going to change the game.

 

Did it change the game? No. Well, slightly, because we now have a better support approach that we can monetize, however, the vision that I had in my first AHA moment, was room full of Sprinkler Nerds, answering calls and helping people directly over the web for a fee. I could clearly see it. I could hire the best Sprinkler Nerds around the country and we could provide a subcontracting service to distributors, other contractors etc., Like Best Buy's version of Geek Squad for the Irrigation Industry.

 

It would amazing if I could snap your fingers and make it happen immediately. And I so often forget this - I want an Oompa Loompa, I want an Oompa Loompa now, haha. The vision is so clear.

 

But Big things take time. Breakthroughs take time.

 

You might be like, oh cool, now I know how to connect smart controllers to the internet and I know how to remotely manage them. But what if you can't sell that service? It might take you years to build out that model - and you can't expect to hit the ground running immediately.

 

So this is a reminder for patience. And I guess it is also a reminder for Persistence. As I think about this, just because you have patience, doesn't mean you have the persistence to keep pursuing your breakthrough.

 

So remember the process, remember that there is significance in the breakthroughs that you discover, and change is happening.